Member close-up: Julie Rovner

About Andy Miller

Andy Miller (@gahealthnews) is the editor and publisher of the nonprofit Georgia Health News. The former health care reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is a member of AHCJ's board of directors and leads the association's Atlanta chapter.

Julie Rovner began her journalism career in 1985 at Legal Times, where she covered banking. She previously had been a staff writer at the Humane Society of the United States and also a press aide for a “very young and brash congressman from Brooklyn,’’ Chuck Schumer.

After a year at Legal Times, she was hired at Congressional Quarterly, where she first took on health as a beat, along with human services.

Rovner started part time at NPR in 1998. She also worked part time at National Journal’s CongressDaily for more than 10 years.

Since 2006, she has worked full time at NPR as a health policy correspondent. In her ‘’spare time’’ she is writing the health and human services chapter of “Congress and the Nation” for CQ.

Julie Rovner

CURRENT BEAT:
Health policy correspondent, NPR

HOW YOU GOT INTO HEALTH REPORTING:
When I got hired at Congressional Quarterly in 1986, that was the beat that was open. I barely knew the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Luckily, I had a fabulous editor, Martha Angle, who remains a friend and mentor to this day. She trained me well.

It wasn’t the first story on the subject, but I am one of the few journalists who covered this story at the time in the late 1980s, so I was able to go back to my original files on the subject and talk to those “there at the birth” as it were. The story made a BIG splash.

YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE AS A JOURNALIST:
In these days of extreme political polarization, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince people you want to tell both sides of a story in a fair and honest and balanced way. There’s just so much more mistrust than there used to be. There’s also so much more background checking to do. It’s a much sped-up news cycle in which you have to be much more careful. Difficult line to walk.

IF YOU WEREN’T A JOURNALIST YOU’D BE:
Sad. Probably a health wonk in a think tank.

IN YOUR FREE TIME YOU:
Ride my horse (dressage and a little jumping) and train (obedience and agility) my corgi. And follow football (Michigan Wolverines and Washington Redskins). All are featured prominently on my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

ONE THING YOUR COLLEAGUES DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU:
If I could I would sleep until noon every day!

ADVICE TO A JOURNALISM STUDENT:
Be sure that while you are learning all the technical stuff that goes along with being a journalist these days (and DO learn all the technical stuff; you will need it), you also learn the basics of reporting and the ethics that go with it.